In short, the first Honeycomb tablet's got big, big taste in a big, big bite.

Friendlier timesApple and Motorola were chummy in the 1990s, as two-thirds of the PowerPC triumvirate that powered Macs until Apple broke up the band in 2005, hooking up with Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) for its microprocessor needs.

Coming out with an iPad killer would taste like sweet revenge for Motorola.

It's already taking its shots.

In a clever promotional video released a few weeks ago, a camera pans through a museum with famous tablets over the years including Moses' 10 commandments and the Rosetta Stone on display. Every tablet is captioned with a benefit, but its glaring weakness is also pointed out.

The camera then pans to the iPad.

"It's like a giant iPhone, but ... it's like a giant iPhone."

Nice shot, but the ad doesn't end there. Motorola even takes aim at its Android buddy, Google, since the next museum case displays the Samsung Galaxy Tab that turned heads when it sold a million units in its first two months on the market.

"Android OS, but Android OS ... for a phone."

The museum teaser finally pans to a draped tablet with the Motorola logo at the base.

Well, the XOOM is draped no more.

It won't be easyMotorola's XOOM will hit the market later this quarter through Verizon as a 3G/Wi-Fi-enabled tablet. It will be available on Verizon's new 4G LTE network next quarter. This means that it should beat Apple's iPad 2 to the market if Apple waits until the early April anniversary of its original tablet to roll out its successor.

Motorola didn't reveal pricing, or if Verizon will be subsidizing a good chunk of the price in exchange for two-year contract commitments. Tablet fans who don't want to spring for a data plan may also out of luck, since Motorola isn't detailing when a Wi-Fi-only version will hit the market.

However, in a week that will be loaded with more tablets than an aspirin bottle, it may be hard to top Motorola's bold entry. Several weeks ago, it seemed as if Research in Motion's (Nasdaq: RIMM) PlayBook would have the best shot at eating into Apple's early lead in this rapidly developing niche among the 2011 debutantes.

There's a real battle breaking out. Apple better not take its early lead lightly.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has an original iPad, but he may be tempted to stray this year. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of theRule Breakersnewsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.The Fool has a disclosure policy.

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

This "killer" idea is for teenagers. Investors know there are no such things as "killer".

iPad will get its share of competition and Apple has to step up and keep competing like everyone else. All the hardware specifications are similar, all the chips, parts and designs ("borrowed" from iPad) are similar. The difference is in the software and the ecosystem and connectivity to other devices (Mac, PC, iPhone, Droid, etc).

For now, Apple has full control over its own software and hardware integration so it can evolve faster and adapt faster. We will see if it can continue to do so effectively.

Wow! Someone's actually got the balls to use the "killer" word again. Notice I said balls, not brains. Lately, after getting burned so badly so many times when they used the 'i-whatever killer' expression, they've all resorted to using the 'i-whatever rival' expression rather than killer.

In any event, we all know that Motorola wants you to say "Zoom" (sounds so eerily like "Zune", doesn't it?) when you read XOOM. But we also all know that the numbnuts that will buy the XOOM will call it the X-oom, i.e. "exhume". How appropriate that Motorola named their device (er, killer) after a verb that means to dig up the dead, the dead usually being in that condition long before they had a chance to really live, lest they would have never had to be dug up in the first place. So Motorola announced its product's birth, death, epihtat, and exhumation to find out what went wrong with it, before they ever even delivered one production piece. Way to go MOT, or MMI-WI if you prefer. That's the way to cut out all the silly in-betweens like selling product, and cutting right to the chase, just like Ralph Kramden who said "I plan on going straight on, forge ahead, to the $99,000 answer", but in this case it's MMI-WI going straight on, forging ahead, to the $999,000,000 debacle"

Well, a minor correction: the DEVICE supports 1080p HD video, the screen does not, because it is impossible (you can't display 1920x1280 pixels on a screen with less pixels)... viewing on the device will downscale the video accordingly.

But I guess that is symptomatic for people reviewing technology based on spec-sheets... they do not get it. There have been feature-laden Windows tablets for over a decade now, almost nobody wanted them. If Android 3 will bring great (enough) usability will be the deciding question. You can't find that on a press release.